Canucks went all in on Jason Garrison with $4.6-million per year deal

Iain MacIntyre, Vancouver Sun columnist07.03.2012

Nine of Jason Garrison's 16 goals last season -- when he made just $675,000 -- came on the power play. Only Shea Weber and Erik Karlsson, each with 19, had more goals than Garrison among NHL defencemen last season.Screengrab
/ GI

Jason Garrison was one of the top scoring defencemen in the NHL last season while playing for the Florida Panthers.Eliot J. Schechter, Nhli Via Getty Images Files
/ Vancouver Sun

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VANCOUVER - After the beloved player who got away and the coveted one who wouldn't come, Jason Garrison is an exciting, albeit expensive, catch for the Vancouver Canucks.

Garrison is no Justin Schultz, the 22-year-old college free agent who spurned the Canucks and 24 other suitors and chose Saturday to join the Edmonton Oilers because he cares more about with whom he plays than where he lives. Schultz may be headed for stardom, but he has the values of a pure hockey player and we admire him for that.

In the short-term, for a team trying to win a Stanley Cup next season, Garrison delivers more National Hockey League certainty than any rookie.

No one in his right mind, however, would choose Garrison over Schultz long-term. But nearly everyone would take him over Sami Salo, the popular and loyal Canuck servant who left Sunday as a free agent with the same class he displayed on Vancouver ice the last 10 years.

In the end, the Canucks didn't have a choice. Schultz had the choice and signed with the Oilers and Salo had the choice and signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning. So the Canucks adjusted on the fly to the free-agent tilt-a-whirl and signed Garrison to a six-year deal for $4.6 million US annually.

You are in or you're out in free agency. There's no safe medium on the opening weekend, no way to hedge bets. The Canucks went all-in on Garrison, a 27-year-old from White Rock who has played only two full NHL seasons, and ended the Canada Day weekend no less a Stanley Cup contender than they were.

There are a lot of comparable elements between Garrison and Salo, but one player is 27 and the other 37, which is why the Canucks would have matched the $3.75 million salary the Lightning gave Salo but not the two-year term Tampa offered.

So the Canucks reconfigured their top four on defence to Dan Hamhuis, Kevin Bieksa, Alex Edler and Garrison. And by doing so, they continued the subtle rebranding of the team that began last week when the royal succession in goal was formalized with the re-signing of Cory Schneider.

The rebranding will be a little more obvious when the Canucks get around to trading deposed starter Roberto Luongo, although they'll have to lower the asking price for the 33-year-old account receivable (Luongo is due more than $42-million over the next six years) or wait for the Florida Panthers or Toronto Maple Leafs to blink.

Even if the core group at forward remains unchanged, the Canucks won't be the same-old, same-old Presidents' Trophy-winning team that reports to training camp.

With two moves – Schneider over Luongo, Garrison instead of Salo – the Canucks got 17 years younger without sacrificing performance.

General manager Mike Gillis still needs another combative defenceman for depth and more size and toughness on the bottom two forward lines. He can get those players during the summer. He needed to get Garrison now, and he did.

The weekend could have been much worse for the Canucks after it began with Schultz, who is from Kelowna, stunning cynics and snobs by choosing to play with contemporaries Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on what was the NHL's second-worst team last season. A lot of people seemed to think Schultz-to-the-Canucks was a done deal.

“Are we disappointed?” Canuck assistant general Laurence Gilman said Monday. “Sure, we were. But there were 25 other disappointed teams and we made it to the final two or three. Justin Schultz didn't leave us at the altar. We made the best pitch we could. He listened and conducted himself with a lot of class, then chose another team. That happens in hockey.”

Gilman echoed Gillis' comments from the previous day, praising Salo's character and his service to the Canucks and wished the veteran well in Tampa.

Salo, who is at his summer cabin deep in the Finnish woods, reciprocated through a statement released Monday by agent Bill Zito.

"It is an honor and a privilege to have been able to call myself a Vancouver Canuck and I wish everyone associated with the organization the best of the luck," Salo said in his statement. “I would like to thank the fans in Vancouver for their support. I was not always a perfect player, but I always gave my best and I appreciate the way the fans treated me.”

He may not, however, have appreciated the way the Canucks treated him a year ago when Salo, after a comeback that followed a career-threatening Achilles injury, had to wait until July 1 to re-sign and received only a bargain-basement one-year contract of $2 million. Whether that hardened his resolve to seek a more generous offer this year is unknown, but at some point nearly every aging player leaves. Such was the case with Markus Naslund in 2008 and Mattias Ohlund in 2009.

Maybe Garrison, a former B.C. Hockey League star in Nanaimo who was never drafted, will play 10 years in Vancouver. He is five months younger than Salo was when the Canucks acquired him in 2002.

“It was a team that I originally wanted to play for,” Garrison said Monday in a conference call. “I think the fit was important and the chance of winning. Vancouver has had a winning team for many years and I hope to come and play and just fit myself into the lineup and help the team win.

“I definitely kind of developed my game later than most guys. I think hard work is a big part of that. That is kind of how I was raised and the mentality that I have. I think that will help coming into a situation like this. I have to work even harder than before."

And be just as good as Salo.

imacintyre@vancouversun.com

twitter.com/imacvansun

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Canucks went all in on Jason Garrison with $4.6-million per year deal

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